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December was the fourth anniversary for Android 2.3 Gingerbread—an eternity for smartphones—yet the OS stubbornly refuses to die. The OS that originally shipped in 2010 is still clinging on to 9.1 percent of active devices, and in developing markets it stillshipsonnew devices. Android 2.3 has even outlasted newer versions of Android, like 3.0 Honeycomb (0 percent) and 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (7.8 percent).

The staying power of Gingerbread means it is still supported by Google with apps and Play Services updates, and a Gingerbread device today looks very different from what it did when the OS debuted in 2010. We're going to take a look at how the OS has aged over the years, which will serve as a fun look at what really low-end phone software still looks like. It should provide some insight into the practical applications of Google Play Services and how it allows an old OS to still get a lot of the newer features.

Why Gingerbread still exists

Gingerbread is still hanging around for a few reasons. First, if you look at phones, it was easily the longest-tenured version of Android. At the time of Gingerbread's release, a major Android update would usually reign as "the newest version" for about three months. Gingerbread, though, was the newest phone version of Android for 10 months, over three times the normal amount.

Further Reading

Android 3.0 Honeycomb came out about three months after Gingerbread—right on schedule—but Honeycomb was for tablets only. Skipping a version meant phones wouldn't see an upgrade until Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Gingerbread was the current phone version of Android for a very, very long time.

The other issue is system requirements. While Android doesn't have an official "minimum spec," Ice Cream Sandwich significantly bumped the system resources needed by the OS. Android 3.0 added full hardware acceleration to Android, which was carried on to Android 4.0 and put the burden on handset makers to ship competent GPUs with working drivers. A GPU-accelerated UI also meant invoking OpenGL for most processes, which uses more RAM. Device storage is a problem, too. If you check the official Nexus image page, an Ice Cream Sandwich build is about 60 percent bigger than a Gingerbread build for the same device.

If you're building hardware, Gingerbread, while not as capable as the latest version, will allow you to build a cheaper device. Google tried to address this problem in KitKat, which reduced the memory usage enough that devices could run with only 512MB of RAM, but that wasn't enough. Today, low-end devices are still shipping with Gingerbread.

Dragging Gingerbread—kicking and screaming—into the present

The Gingerbread Play Store update process. First you start with this version of the "Android Market" (the old name of the Play Store) that shipped in December 2010 with Gingerbread. The top is supposed to house a carousel, but it doesn't work anymore.

Ron Amadeo

An update! At the next startup, you get this message that the Android Market will be renamed the "Google Play Store."

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And then you're auto-updated to the first version of the Play Store, which first shipped in March 2012, about a year and a half after Gingerbread.

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This version of the Play Store knows about Google Play Services, so guess what silently shows up on our device next? It's "Google Settings," the app icon that Google Play Services sticks in your app drawer. We've now got Play Services 6.5.99—the latest version.

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Then—holy crap!—yet another Play Store update. Once Play Services is installed, we get auto updated to the very latest version of the Play Store. You're looking at Material Design on Gingerbread.

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Aaaaannd then we fill the 512MB of storage on our Nexus One. =( For our purposes, it's nothing some rooted SD card shenanigans can't fix, and newer devices would probably (hopefully) come with more storage than this.

Ron Amadeo

Google Play Services takes up 57MB, while the entire Gingerbread image is only about 100MB.

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Gingerbread's longevity makes it the oldest version of Android that is still semi-supported by Google. Google Play Services came out in September 2012—a whopping two years after Gingerbread—but it still supports the aging OS. The most important app of any smartphone OS is the app store, and Google has made sure to not leave Gingerbread behind—as you can see in the main article picture, the OS gets the very latest version of the Play Store.

Watching a freshly wiped Gingerbread device hit the Internet for the first time is a fascinating process, which is shown in the gallery above. If you open the included "Android Market" app (the precursor to the Play Store), at first you'll see the 2010-era design, complete with a big green header. There should be a thumbnail carousel in the big green header, but the app is broken due to the lack of support from Google's servers. What does work is the update process, and about a minute of being open, the Android Market will shut down and upgrade itself to the Play Store.

When the Play Store updates, you don't jump right to the current version, you get Play Store 3.9.16. This version of the Play Store is special. It was released in October 2012, making it the first version of the Play Store released after Google Play Services 1.0 went live.

Sure enough, once Play Store 3.9.16 hits our device, Google Play Services starts to silently download and install in the background. After a minute or two, "Google Settings" will show up in the app drawer, indicating that Google Play Services has arrived. Once Play Services has arrived, the Play Store gets updated again, this time to the latest version.

This clunky update process is a great example of the makeup of a Gingerbread device today. Google Play Services works as a "shim" in between an app and the OS, patching new features and APIs in where they are needed. We couldn't update directly to the current Play Store because without Play Services, it just wouldn't work. Play Services fills in the functionality gaps in Gingerbread that the Play Store needs to run.

Gingerbread in 2010 versus today

As we've seen with the Play Store, Google Play is a big supporter of Gingerbread. Here's Google Play Music, which still makes the latest version compatible with the ancient OS. It's a big step up from the local-only music app that originally shipped with Gingerbread.

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And you even get the Material Design hamburger/back button animation.

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Google Play Games—one of Google's newest services—makes the jump to Gingerbread, too. This is another modern app with tons of Material Design flourishes. Not everything is perfect though. There's this weird "PROGRESS_BAR" text in the top right of the first picture, and large thumbnails never load.

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Thanks to Google Play Services, the Play Games API is available for use by third-party developers. Here's an app using the Google back end to provide leaderboards and cloud-saved user data.

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Remote wipe and tracking came out three years after Gingerbread, and it would normally be something that needs to be built into an OS. But again, thanks to Play Services, a core system feature like this can be patched into an old OS.

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Google Talk gets tossed aside for the latest version of Google Hangouts.

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Google Maps isn't the latest version, but it's slightly newer than what ships with Gingerbread. This seems to be from the Ice Cream Sandwich era.

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YouTube gets updated from the old all-black design to a much newer version.

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Google Books gets updated to Google Play Books. It's not the newest Lollipop-era version, but it's just a single redesign behind.

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It's the same story for Google Play Movies and TV, which seems to have gotten cut off from the Material Design app.

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Google's Magazine store didn't exist when Gingerbread launched, but the OS still gets a client.

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Google+ didn't exist when Gingerbread came out, either, but Google was sure to make a client for it. This version is another 4.0-era app.

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Once Gingerbread has Play Services under its belt, there's a lot the OS can offer someone who's still stuck on it. Google still provides supported clients for most of its services, and Google Play Services means third-party apps can take advantage of some of Google's newer APIs.

Play Games, which launched almost three years after Gingerbread, still manages to support the OS, thanks to Play Services. Developers can target the Play Games APIs and get saved cloud data, leaderboards, and other features. Normally something like this would need to be built into the OS, but Play Services takes care of that. The same goes for remote wipe and location features, which are seamlessly patched in.

App support from some areas of Google is excellent. Gingerbread can still run the newest versions of the Play Store, Play Music, Play Games, and Hangouts. You get all the Material Design flourishes, including things like the spinning hamburger/back button.

It's not perfect, though. Many apps got cut off either just before the Material Design update or are stuck somewhere in the Android 4.0-era. Some of the newer Google services, like Inbox, aren't available on Gingerbread at all. Google also doesn't provide a modern browser—Chrome requires Android 4.0.

It's surprising that Google hasn't done any work on the search app. Search is, after all, the company's bread and butter. On Gingerbread the Google app is the same as it was at launch: a boring old search bar. Google Now isn't here, and neither are the company's voice commands.

Much like Microsoft's problem with Windows XP, it looks like Google will have a while to go before it can finally be rid of Gingerbread. It's hard to get rid of something that has been around for so long, especially when the replacement has higher system requirements.

While app support is all over the place, things like Google Play Services ensure that Gingerbread can continue chugging along for a long time. Unless Google releases some kind of ultra-low spec Android version, it's hard to see Gingerbread completely dying any time soon. As nice as the new animation improvements are in Lollipop, for some vendors you just can't beat low hardware requirements.

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Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo